On November 9, 2026, negotiators from nearly 200 countries meet in Antalya, Türkiye, for the 31st UN climate conference (Conference of the Parties or COP31) to read one another’s plans to tackle climate challenges and to assess collective progress. Strip away the diplomatic language and each plan says here’s what we emit now, here’s how much less we intend to emit, and here’s how we’ll get there. You can do your part in our planet’s transition to clean energy by writing a household energy plan today, reviewing twelve months of utility bills, and deciding what you can do to save energy (and money!) at home.

Yes, it feels like homework. But it’s the rare kind that pays you back every month.

It will also set you on the path to becoming a Sustainable Practitioner, and Sustainable Practice can help you start that journey with our new membership plan, with both free and paid tiers and extra benefits (including a web app that lets you measure your progress). Go to https://www.SustainablePractice.Life and join! You’ll also have the opportunity to get books that make ideal holiday gifts for your sustainable family and friends!—-Peggy

This is a step on the Energy pathway, which focuses on wasting less energy, electrifying, and drawing what you need from cleaner sources. It also leans into Community, the pathway of growing networks of people who practice sustainability together, because a plan that you share is a plan you’re more likely to keep. Most of our Energy steps have been single moves: flipping the ceiling fan, resetting your thermostat schedule after last Sunday’s clock change, choosing green power. This one is the ledger behind all of them. You discern which moves matter most in your house, and whether the ones you’ve made are working.

What Antalya is checking

COP31 runs November 9 through 20 under an unusual shared arrangement: Türkiye hosts the conference, while Australia presides over the negotiations. A central agenda item is countries’ newest national climate plans and whether they add up to enough. Every one of those plans starts from a measured baseline.

National energy data reflect the decisions you’re making at your kitchen table: after all, a nation is made up of households. Most of us know roughly what we pay for heat and power. Very few of us know how much fuel and electricity we consume every year, and fewer still have written down a number to aim for.

A goal plus a scoreboard

Behavioral scientists have been testing this pairing for nearly fifty years. In a 1978 field study, psychologist Lawrence Becker asked families to set goals for cutting their summer electricity use. Some picked an easy target of 2 percent; others picked a hard one of 20 percent. Half of each group also received feedback on their consumption three times a week. Only one group used significantly less electricity than households that got no intervention at all: families with the hard goal and regular feedback, who cut use by 13 to 15 percent.

Nearly three decades later, researchers in the Netherlands gave households a 5 percent savings goal, information tailored to their homes, and periodic feedback. After five months, those households had used 5.1 percent less energy, while a comparison group used 0.7 percent more.

Neither the target nor the scoreboard does the job alone. Together, they reliably move the gauge.

Drafting your plan

Start by gathering twelve months of energy use. You want quantities, not dollars: kilowatt-hours from your electric bill, therms or hundreds of cubic feet (CCF) from your gas bill, gallons from oil or propane delivery slips. Many utilities will hand you the whole year in one file if you log in and look for a “Green Button” or “Download My Data” link. Add it all up. That’s your baseline.

Now write three lines on a single sheet of paper:

  • Baseline: what your household emitted over the past twelve months.

  • Target: what you’ll aim for in 2027. Becker’s work suggests a goal that makes you stretch beats a comfortable one, so aim for 10 to 20 percent.

  • Practices: two or three specific actions that will get you there. The thermostat and timer schedules from last week are a natural first entry.

Post the sheet wherever you open bills. Each month, compare that bill with the same month a year earlier, not the month before, so that a cold January doesn’t look like a failure in energy use reduction. Jotting ‘very cold month’ on your sheet gives you the detail of why your energy use could have increased. Most people who set a goal never check their progress. The bill gets paid and filed without a second look. The monthly glance gives you that feedback, and it takes just two minutes.

Your one step this week

Give yourself a deadline to pull twelve months of energy use (including both fuel and electricity), add it up, and put your baseline, your 2027 target, and your measures on one page. Then show it to one other person: whoever shares your utility bill, or a neighbor or a friend who’d enjoy comparing notes. Countries publish their plans so others can see whether they follow through. A household plan works the same way on a smaller stage.

Delegates in Antalya will argue over gigatons for two weeks. You can finish your own energy plan before the end of the day, and a year from now you’ll know exactly how far you've come.

When you’re ready to choose the practices that move your number most, from tuning up your existing equipment to electrifying and then generating your own power, explore the Energy pathway in Sustainable Practices: Your Handbook for Effective Action, available at https://www.SustainablePractice.Life, or visit www.suspra.com.

And don’t forget to join Sustainable Practice as a Sustainable Practitioner. You’ll continue to get this publication for free, plus other benefits are offered with our community membership! Sign up here:

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Sustainable Practice empowers you to protect our planet in practical ways. Share this article with whoever opens the utility bills in your house, and write your household’s climate plan together while the world’s nations work on theirs.